


We Found Each Other In A Cage

by odinswhiteraven



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Angst, Childhood Memories, Childhood Trauma, Drama, Eventual Romance, F/M, Friendship
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-06-05
Updated: 2020-06-05
Packaged: 2021-03-04 07:34:02
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,228
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24549961
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/odinswhiteraven/pseuds/odinswhiteraven
Summary: Bellamy and Echo meet on a battlefield. What follows after is anything but war.
Relationships: Bellamy Blake & John Murphy, Bellamy Blake/Echo, Echo & Roan (The 100), Echo/Ontari (The 100)
Comments: 3
Kudos: 14





	We Found Each Other In A Cage

**Author's Note:**

> "Fire on Fire" by Sam Smith

The first time Bellamy and Echo met was during a game of airsoft. Both their faces had been covered up by masks. 

Bellamy and Murphy were sprinting out of a dilapidated building. Their position had just been overrun. Echo was up in a tree wearing green camouflage. She’d lined her bolt-action sniper rifle against a tree branch and fired. 

Her shot nailed one of them in the chest. 

“Mother fuck a duck!” Murphy raised a hand. “HIT!” He called out for all to hear. 

“What the fuck?!” Bellamy slid behind a barricade of tires and looked all over: “Where’d that come from?” 

"Beats me.” Murphy shrugged and took off his helmet. He shook his chocolate-colored hair, now matted and spiky with sweat, left to right. Murphy sighed at the cool air around his face: “But you’re fucked.” 

“Shut up, Murphy!” Bellamy spat. “Do you see anyone?” 

“It’s a sniper, Bellamy.” Murphy laughed and started walking back: “You don't stand a chance.” 

“Help me find them!” 

“Fuck all that. I don’t get paid enough for this.” 

“No one’s paying you shit, dumbass! We do this every Saturday! For fun!” 

“Exactly.” 

“Murphy, I swear to God-” 

“Relax. We did this to kill time before the party. I think we’ve killed enough. Emori’s cooking lasagna as we speak. The sooner you die, the sooner we grub.” 

Murphy was gone before Bellamy could reply. 

“Goddamn you, Murphy.” Bellamy shook his head and knocked the back of his head against the tires. 

Echo smiled. She slid the bolt of her rifle back and forward into place, loading another airsoft pellet. This was going to be fun. He was trapped behind the tires with no way to escape. She didn’t have a clean shot as of yet, but that would change soon enough. Give it time. He would slip up. All she had to do was wait. 

Ontari, one of her squadmates, just wound her way around the corner of that same building. But before she could get a shot off, this ‘Bellamy’ lit her up with his assault rifle. RATATATATATAATATA 

“HIT!” Ontari raised her hand and started retreating back. She caught sight of Echo, stopped in her tracks for far too long, before pointing at the tire barricade. Ontari then left. Echo cursed under her breath. That was a stupid mistake. 

She already knew where Bellamy was, she wasn’t blind! There was no reason to do that. 

Echo steadied her breath and looked through her scope but nothing peaked out from behind those tires. Maybe she was overreacting. There was no way he could’ve caught on to that. 

“I saw where she was looking.” Bellamy called out. “You’re in front of me.” 

Echo’s shoulders bristled at that. She shook her head in exasperation and aimed some more. 

“Was that your girlfriend that I just shot?” This 'Bellamy' was a talker. “Don’t worry, you’ll be joining her soon enough.” 

Echo gritted her teeth. He was trying to get at her. She wasn’t going to let him. 

Another one of her squadmates made their way to his location. Roan. He managed to get off a couple of rounds. Bellamy traded shots with Roan. RATATATATATAATA. Roan slide near a metal barrel and hid from Bellamy's hail of gunfire. Then he popped up and fired back. BRAKAKAAKAKAKAKA-SHINK. His gun jammed. Damn it, Roan! Echo cursed and let off a shot of her own, trying to graze the top of Bellamy's curly, black-haired head that appeared over the tires. She missed. 

Bellamy didn’t. He shot Roan to pieces. The man-burn sporting man raised his hand and called out: “HIT!” But before Roan left the battlefield, he looked at her the same way Ontari did. The same exact way, with the same hesitation, same familiarity. And then he did the worst thing he could’ve done. 

“He's all yours, Echo!” Roan trotted back before he could see Echo throw up her hands in frustration. 

“Echo?” Bellamy echoed in a strange voice. Then he burst out laughing. Bellamy's laughter was loud and long and it sounded like the body that was making it was shaking from all that mirth. “Your name is Echo?!” 

Her arms trembled out of anger. Echo blushed furiously. She felt the back of her neck burn, felt the prickly sensations of humiliation and irritation all mixed into one. 

Still Bellamy laughed. He laughed louder and louder and louder. 

Until Echo fired another shot at him. Of course, she missed. She hit the tires instead. It was stupid move. A stupid mistake. She just gave herself away. 

The laughter stopped. There was only silence now. Bellamy was quiet. Too quiet. 

Had she hit him? Did her pellet somehow make it through the barricade? If so, why hadn’t he called the hit? 

Then after a long, long, long pause. 

Bellamy started laughing. Again. Louder than ever before. Twice as long. 

Echo closed her eyes and knocked her forehead against the scope of her sniper rifle. 

“Easy there, Echo!” Bellamy hooted. “That’s an Official Red Ryder Carbine-Action Two-Hundred-Shot Range Model Air Rifle you’re holding!” 

She looked at her sniper rifle and shook her head. That wasn’t right. Her model was a Novritsch SSG24. Wait a minute, that sounded familiar. What he said just now. Where did she hear that from? 

“You’ll shoot your eye out, kid!” Bellamy roared with laughter after that. “Get it? Cause you suck at shooting. Just like Ralphie!” 

Echo’s emptied her entire clip after that. She fired shot after shot at the pile of tires that hid her prey. 

No one’s ever spoken to her like this before. No one’s ever acted this way in front of her. Anyone who knew her knew she’d put her foot up the first ass that even thought about spouting all this nonsense. 

But she couldn’t reach him. Not from here. 

Before she knew it, her cartridge was empty. Echo clenched her teeth some more and ejected it. She pulled a magazine from her vest and inserted it into her sniper rifle. 

Then she heard the ringing of a phone. She looked all around her for any signs of potential trouble. But then she realized it was coming from Bellamy. 

“Murphy? You son of a bitch! Hell yeah I’m still alive. Listen, Murphy You’re not going to believe this. That sniper that got you? Her name is Echo! Yeah, Echo! I know right? HAHAHAHAHAHAHA!” 

Echo pulled out her Colt M1991 airsoft model from her holster and considered rushing at him right then and there. 

“Emori called? People are arriving? Already? Alright you go, I’ll catch up. GO! Murphy. I’m having way too much fun right now. Keep everyone happy until I get there. 

She tried aiming down the sights of her handgun at any movement she could find near the tires. It was starting to get overcast out here. The clouds were getting in the way of the sun. Echo holstered her pistol. 

“How’d I find out her name? Well, it’s a funny story. Her squad came rushing at me. So then I shot her boyfriend and he called out-” 

“HE’S NOT MY BOYFRIEND!” Echo shouted. The words slipped out of her mouth before she could stop them. Her eyes widened at her outburst, surprised at even herself. 

Bellamy cleared his throat and quietly said his goodbyes to Murphy before hanging up. 

Neither of them spoke after that. Not for a long time. There was no one left on the battlefield but them. Either the refs forgot about them or they started a whole new game. Either way, they were far away. And the two of them were here. 

“You’re in the tree.” Bellamy called out to her. “Aren’t you?” 

Echo remained silent. She willed herself to shut up this time around. And to stay that way. No matter the provocation. 

“I’ve got to say. That’s brilliant.” Bellamy said loudly. “I’ve never seen that before.” 

She still didn’t have a shot. That tire barricade might as well win the Oscar for Best Actor. Because it’s acted like a real fucking pain in her ass. Piece of shit Goodyear. 

“To be honest, I’ve never once considered doing what you're doing.“ Bellamy continued. “Climbing up a tree just to win an airsoft game. That’s fucking hardcore.” 

He’s trying to get at me again. Echo shook her head and continued aiming. Don’t fall for his tricks again. 

"So...Echo, huh?"

STOP MAKING FUN OF MY NAME! Echo wanted to scream at the top of her lungs. But she managed to hold her tongue

“Another victim of Hera's wrath, eh?” 

Echo stopped breathing. Her finger hovered over the trigger, unable to press. Even when she saw a sliver of Bellamy’s mask from the corner of the tire pile. He was there. For the taking. All she had to do was shoot. But she couldn’t. 

“You fell in love with Narcissus.” Bellamy continued. “But were unable to tell him how you feel." 

Her mother used to tell her the story of her name at night before she went to bed. It was her favorite bedtime story. Her mother would always ask what she wanted to hear in that tired, not in the mood for nonsense, voice of hers and Echo always responded with the story of Echo. She’d watch her mother roll her eyes and shake her head and sigh. But never once did she refuse. Her mother told it to her. Sometimes in vivid detail. Other times in a hurried rush. Again and again and again. Until the very night she left and never came back. Leaving her and her father behind. To chase dreams of becoming an actress. A singer. A dancer. 

Anything that didn’t have anything to do with being a wife or mother. 

“You had to watch him as he fell in love with himself.” Bellamy concluded: “Doomed to suffer from an endless broken heart.” He pulled that same sliver of his mask back into cover. “Pining after your unrequited love.” 

Echo remembered sleeping on the couch near the front door of their house. Waiting for her mother to come back to her. Her father would always try to get her to stop. She wasn’t coming back, he said. They were too poor. Too plain. Not good enough for her. Not now, not ever. But Echo refused to believe him. She’s my mother, Echo would tell him. She’ll come back. You’ll see. She’ll come back to us and I’ll make things better. I’ll cook. I’ll clean. I’ll be the best daughter ever. You’ll see. I’ll make it so she’s never unhappy. Not ever again. This is all just a mistake. She will come back to us. You'll see. 

But she never did. 

“Shut up.” Echo whispered. There were tears in her eyes now. She tried rubbing at them with her knuckles, but they were underneath her mask. And they still kept coming. 

Elementary school graduation. No mother. Middle school graduation. No mother. No mother to help shop for a prom dress. To help do my make-up. To take pictures of me. No mother at my high school graduation. No mother AND no father at college graduation because the cancer took him away before she ever received her diploma. It rotted him from the inside out and even then, she never showed. Even as Echo sat at his bedside, watching him slowly die. She never came.

“Is any of this familiar to you?” Bellamy was ruthless in his strategy. He wanted to win. More than Echo wanted to. “Fuck, are you the real Echo?” He poked his head out quickly and then pulled it back in. “A real, honest-to-Zeus nymph?” 

“Shut up.” He’s getting to me, Echo thought. She pulled off her mask and started wiping her eyes. “Shut up.” It’s working. Her whispers are growing louder and louder by the second. She’s starting to lose control. "Shut up."

“In a way, Narcissus had power over you.” Bellamy finished. “Are you still waiting for your master’s orders? Waiting for something that's never coming for you?” 

“I SAID SHUT UP!” Echo fumbled with her rifle during her outburst. "SHUT UP!" It fell from her spot in the tree and hit the ground hard. “SHUT UP!” 

Bellamy moved out of cover and let loose a RATATATATAATATAA. Echo felt his pellets hitting her vest. "I’ve got you!” He shouted. Bellamy started jumping up and down and riding his assault rifle between his legs like a bucking bronco. ‘LET’S FUCKING GO!” This went on for ages. Bellamy rode that rifle of his in circles. When he realized that Echo wasn’t reacting to any of his stunts, he finally stopped moving. Bellamy pulled off his mask and wiped his tan, freckled face. He ruffled his sweat-soaked, messy black hair and looked up at her. 

Echo stared down at him with a quiet rage. Her tears streamed down her face while her shoulders trembled. 

She wiped her face and climbed down the tree. When she was finally on the ground, she realized just how tall Bellamy was compared to her and she hated it. He raised a hand and started uttering an “Are you okay?” 

Echo ignored him. She stormed off, away from Bellamy. Away from her sniper rifle, still lying on the dirt. 

Away from all the feelings he managed to stir up inside of her in the short time he had with her. 

Into the forest.


End file.
